Romantic Tales From The Panjab With Indian Nights’ Entertainment

This rare book is comprised all the stories which he had previously issued in two separate works, entitled respectively, Indian Nights’ Entertainment and Romantic Tales from the Punjab. In now republishing the full tale of these stories, in a complete edition intended for popular use, it is not needful to write much by way of introduction, and much which he writes he has written before. They are essentially the tales of the people. They are truly representative of the quaint legends and stories which form the delight of the village hujra or guesthouse on winternights, when icy winds are blowing over mountain and plain; when the young men of the village community gather round the blazing logs to be charmed by the voice of some wandering minstrel, to listen agape to his incredible descriptions of the miseries and the joys of hapless love, or to revel in the fantastic tales of giants, goblins and fairies; or when the weary wayfarer, if not too spent to sit up, alternates the recital of fictitious wonders by news from the outer world, or commands the attention of auditors, as simple as himself, by circumstantial accounts of disastrous chances of his own by flood and fell. It was at the little village of Ghazi, on the river Indus, thirty miles above Attock, and upwards of a thousand miles due north of Bombay, that many of these tales were written down from the mouths of the simple narrators themselves. The book is full of interesting tales to arouse a considerable interest among the common readers.